Blood Feud
by RowanDarkstar
Summary: "The spell would not break until they learned to love one another. Or tore one another apart in the trying."


**DISCLAIMER:** "Once Upon a Time" and all its wonderful characters belong to ABC and Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, etc.. I borrow them only with love.  
**TIMELINE:** Generally late season 2 or just after. The majority of the story was written before "Second Star to the Right" aired, so none of the events or character interactions from that final arc are taken into account here.

Beta love to Helenhighwater7, Annienau08, one anonymouse, and Ariestess for the best of intentions.*g*

**BLOOD FEUD**  
by  
Rowan Darkstar  
Copyright (c) 2013

The boy thought of it. The notion was formed the day his grandfather (no, not the one you are thinking of...the other one...the...darker one), the day his grandfather said the only means of ending a blood feud was the spilling of more blood.

Every fiber in Henry's being raged at the wrongness of this statement. At first he thought the real answer was to take away magic. He tried. He tried to explode it all away. But, in the end he realized; the answer to a blood feud was not more blood. The answer to dark magic was not more darkness. The answer to sickness was not more disease. The answer to the sleeping curse was not deeper hatred.

It was love.

All the answers...were love.

Gold agreed to help the boy. But he did not agree to participate in the plan. He agreed to help out of...curiosity...nostalgia...perhaps a hidden twist of apologetic affection.

Or perhaps he merely hoped to watch the royals destroy themselves, one and all, and spare him the trouble.

In any case, he cast the spell to keep them in the house. To keep them all in. Even the most powerful.

Henry was the one to explain it to them all. He was disappointed Gold had chosen to remain an observer, but the boy had learned to make the best of what he did have. He gathered the group together in Granny's, after hours. Neutral ground, of sorts. Mary Margaret, David, Emma, and Regina. Regina choosing to stand while the others sat. Regina looking wary and skittish and expecting an attack.

Henry took her hand and pulled her closer. Hesitant as she was, she had never once refused his touch.

"This has to stop," he said, by way of an opening statement. And truly, none in the room could call him wrong. It was the "how" that had long perplexed them.

"There's only one way," the boy said. "And you all know what it is. You just don't want to."

There was wisdom in youth. Simplicity slicing through the complexity of chaos.

"And what is that?" David asked, indulging the boy he was coming to love like a son.

The boy drew a deep breath and met the gaze of each of the adults in turn. "You have to talk to each other," he said. "You have to really talk to each other. Like family. Real family. _All_ of you."

They each tried to argue, carefully and patiently, pacifying the boy, acknowledging his best intentions while trying to re-complicate the truth with tangled details. But the longer they talked, the more the inevitability soaked beneath their skins. There was love or there was hate. They could choose one or choose the other. Each of them, in his own way, grew tired of the option he had chosen for so long.

Three days passed and two more clandestine gatherings took place. In the end...each of them agreed to participate, with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

On a Friday night, the five erstwhile royals gathered - David, Mary Margaret, Emma, Henry, and Regina - standing on the sidewalk in a shady part of Orbison Street, outside a vacant house in which Gold had invested long ago but rarely found tenants to occupy. Regina waved her hands, dusted the air with wisps of purple, and polished the place into suitable lodgings. Rumplestiltskin welcomed them across the threshold with a slick and professional air, led the tour like a realtor promoting his wares. Then he sealed the tenants inside like prisoners on death row.

Regina still had her magic. She had fallen off the wagon long ago. The Charmings should have been the ones feeling fear in such confined quarters. But it was Regina whose claustrophobia made her sick to her stomach. Even as Gold disappeared into the gathering evening shadows, she tried a freedom spell on the door and took a sharp shock to the fingers. Regina had been locked in towers before. She had no desire to repeat the experience.

The spell would not break until they learned to love one another. Or tore one another apart in the trying.

Day 1

Henry's happiness was all that held the night together. For the first hours, the simple fact of everyone's presence in a single house was enough for him. A tiny glimpse of the unified family for which he so longed. Emma and David and Mary Margaret were used to living together, used to being a family, if a new and disjointed one. They could forget for small stretches of time that this was not just another night in the loft. But the tension wafting off Regina was enough to prickle everyone's nerves. She hardly spoke, kept a safe distance from the others, even when she stood in the same room. She paced like a caged tiger, ate only a few bites of her dinner before she pushed the plate away. When she abruptly stalked out of the room in the middle of a lively conversation round the table, Henry called out to her. Her heels ceased to clack on the hallway tile, but she did not turn. Henry rose from his chair and followed his mother into the hall. The boy took a breath as if to speak, then he simply plunged himself into his mother's chest and wrapped his arms tight around her waist. Regina hesitated only a moment before hugging her son tight, never acknowledging the silent group watching every nuance of the display.

"Thank you. For doing this for me," the boy said, voice muffled in his mother's red blouse. She smelled like pieces of his childhood he wanted to remember. Magic was still spicy on her skin.

Regina let her hair hide her face as she held on to her son, fingers tangled in his tousled hair. She whispered, "Good night, darling," then disappeared up the stairs.

David stared at the floor. Emma smiled softly at Henry as he sought her eyes. Mary Margaret stared down the hallway, chasing after a whisper of memory.

Day 3

They soon discovered that one morning paper and four bored adults presented a consistent problem. The first day had seemed like a vacation, but the reality of their situation soaked in as days ticked by and no alarm clocks rang, no schedules called, no cell phone summoned immediate attention. The need for structure, for a daily plan and goals to accomplish, made itself speedily apparent.

Regina organized an educational regimen for Henry. She gathered a stack of carefully chosen books from the library on the second floor, and she wrote out a reading schedule, asking Henry to compose a summary of one book every second week, then bring it to her for perusal. Mary Margaret suggested she could help as well; she was a teacher after all. Regina offered a plastic smile and said no thank you, they would be fine.

Emma sat by and felt mildly inadequate. She hadn't even thought about schooling for Henry.

Day 6

Regina had a problem with the lack of privacy. She had lived alone for a long time. Then with Henry. But when he had been young, not yet talking, she had still been able to hear her own thoughts. Then later, he had been gone in school or off at activities or playing in his room several hours a day. In this place, Regina often felt the need to retreat to her room and shut the door and breathe. But those small quarters quickly grew overly confining. She longed for her own back yard. The bench, the trellis...her apple tree. She had spent many hours in her garden at Leopold's castle, many hours in the stables with no company but Rocinante. One day, she might ride another horse. One day.

On the sixth afternoon, Regina left the safety of her room, stretched her legs, and slipped downstairs for a glass of iced tea. The back door stood open onto the painfully small back garden, and the cool breeze dancing across the bare flesh of her throat and snaking beneath the silk of her blouse soothed her nerves. She carried her glass onto the narrow rear deck and settled against a post, eyes closed, drinking in the fleeting taste of freedom.

David's voice startled her, and she turned to find him seated in the shadows at the far end of the porch. "Easier to breathe out here, hmm?" he said. No threat or challenge laced his words, only a strange sort of comfortable camaraderie.

When Regina had slowed her breathing, she gave a small nod. "I've always preferred the outdoors," she said.

David's eyes narrowed in genuine surprise. "Really? I wouldn't have thought that about you."

Regina turned and gazed out over the high wall toward the blue sky beyond, chin lifted like the regal she would always be. "You know nothing about me."

David let go a soft laugh. "You may have a point there. Maybe that's exactly why we're all here."

Regina did not speak.

As the prince watched the fallen queen's profile in the late afternoon sun, watched her swallow a sip of iced tea and straighten the gold pendant hanging around her neck, it settled upon him how very much she was a woman he did not know. This hurricane force that had torn apart his family, his security, his life, shaken the very ground beneath him. This entity of the Evil Queen burned into his mind like the dark cloud that had once traveled at her heels. Here in the setting sun, watching a woman with a silk blouse and gold earrings and iced tea on her lips, a woman who was swallowing her pride and taking on a task she loathed for the son she loved...he gazed upon a stranger.

"That fence needs fixing," David said.

Regina looked his way with a frown, and David waved his lemonade toward a rough patch of wood at the far corner of the yard.

Regina followed his gaze and ran an appraising eye over the offending landscape. She turned back to him and waited for more, lifted her eyebrows, then finally prompted, "And?"

"And...I found some tools and wood in the shed. I think someone started to fix it and stopped. I thought it would be a good project for some distraction. And Henry asked if he could help."

"Oh." Regina stared at the porch boards for a while. Then she nodded, almost as if to herself. "Yes. That would be nice for him. He might learn something."

David nodded and took another sip of his drink. After a while, Regina tilted her head against the post once again and closed her eyes.

Day 8

Henry convinced Regina to make his favorite apple cinnamon pancakes for breakfast. Without a word, she made enough for everyone. Emma ate more than her share and told Regina outright how much she loved them. David teased Mary Margaret about her usual recipe tasting a bit more like cardboard and Mary Margaret stuck out her tongue.

Regina said, "She never did pay much attention when I was teaching her."

Henry got syrup on his shirt.

"Henry, watch what you're doing."

"Yours really do taste like cardboard," he said to his grandmother, and Emma caught the small upturn at the corner of Regina's mouth.

Henry and David headed outside to saw boards with a ban from Regina on all power tools. Emma and Mary Margaret washed the dishes and decided to tackle laundering the bed sheets. Regina shut herself in her room with a book and a glass of iced tea.

Day 12

They discovered that watching movies together was not impossible. It took a while for Regina to admit she had a fondness for Cary Grant films and was not opposed to Gregory Peck. Mary Margaret liked Gene Kelly. Henry hooked up his laptop to the living room television and streamed films for them in the evenings. No one talked much. Every now and then Regina gave a soft chuckle at some of the humor, and Emma realized she had never seen Regina sincerely amused by something. There was very little eye contact. But no one left, and no one argued. On the fourth movie night, Mary Margaret made popcorn, and Regina silently melted the butter to drizzle on top. Mary Margaret held the bowl while Regina poured.

Day 16

Regina fell asleep in the corner of the couch during _North by Northwest_. Henry said it was okay, she had seen the movie before. Then he covered her with a lap blanket before he went to get ready for bed. The others washed up the snack bowls in the kitchen. David was the last one left to turn out the lights. He started to wake Regina so she wouldn't have a stiff neck in the morning. He watched her breathe for several seconds, noticed the soft crinkles at the corners of her eyes and the way her freckles were more visible in faded make-up and late-night light. In the end, he left her where she lay and climbed the stairs to Mary Margaret.

Day 19

"So, you were younger than Henry when you lost your mom?"

Mary Margaret stretched up from the top step of the library ladder, working her chosen book loose from its long-established home. She pulled the leather volume down and focused on the binding as she offered her reply to her daughter. "Yes. Several years younger, actually."

Emma frowned but remained silent where she stood steadying the ladder.

Snow White of the Enchanted Forest had never been much for books. But Mary Margaret of Storybrooke had developed a deep love of literature. She had begun by reading to her students, then gradually discovered the worlds and adventures open to her between these treasured covers. Now she could not imagine her life without the magic of stories.

Regina had already thoroughly perused the shelves for Henry, but she had taken a good-sized pile to her own room as well. Emma looked over the gaps and dust outlines where the queen had left her trace. "You know, I never really pegged Regina for a big reader," she said.

Mary Margaret looked down with interest, glad for the change of subject. Because, truthfully, the princess was still torn between savoring every single moment with her long lost daughter, making up for lost time and bonding heart to heart with every chance they got, and wanting to stay in her protected bubble in which she chose not to think about her infant daughter having been ripped from her arms and her life. "Oh, yes, Regina loves to read. Always. She read all the time when I was growing up."

"Really?"

"Really. She was always trying to pass on her favorites to me. And when I was young I did like to listen when she read to me, but I never had the patience to read much for myself. I was always running off. I think she was disappointed by that. She wanted to share what she loved."

Emma wrinkled her nose and shrugged. "It wasn't your fault if you weren't interested."

Mary Margaret narrowed her gaze and cocked her head in consideration. "Maybe. But maybe it wasn't about showing an interest in the books. Maybe I should have read them because I was interested in _her_. Maybe I should have shown that."

"Kids are allowed to be kids."

Mary Margaret tucked her book beneath her arm and began a careful descent. "They should be. But that doesn't excuse them from showing love to those they care about."

"And you...cared about Regina?"

"She's my stepmother. Of course, I cared about her. Don't you?"

Emma blinked. "Me?"

"Yes. I mean, you seem to...defend her more often than most people. The two of you seem to...understand each other."

"I wouldn't say...well, I mean, she's Henry's...and it's not like I can...I don't even..." Emma's words fell to nothing and her shoulders sagged beneath her mother's raised brows. She cleared her throat. "Yeah, of course I do. When she's...ya know...not trying to poison me. Or you." Then after a moment, she added, "Best enemies?"

And Mary Margaret could not stifle a laugh. "Welcome to the royal family."

Day 23

The prince found an old and scarred croquet set in the house's unfinished basement.

Henry lit up like a firework. Croquet was something Regina had often set out for them on summer evenings in their back garden. His very task-oriented mother held a few areas of planned recreation as sacred, and Henry treasured those times with her. When someone said, "Regina," the boy thought of the scheming Mayor, of the Evil Queen. When someone said, "Your Mom," the boy thought of walks along the trail at the edge of the park, kicking at piles of leaves with his hand wrapped tightly around his mother's and her soft smiles in the wind, fresh baked cookies when he came in from sledding, chapter after chapter of his favorite stories when he was ill, or croquet wickets and playful laughter beneath warm sun.

"You're doing it wrong," Regina said, as David pounded the scorepost into the forgiving ground.

The prince paused in his efforts and looked up at the queen with a raised eyebrow. "Oh, is that right, Your Majesty?"

Regina held out her hands as though the fault were obvious. Regina had never well-tolerated those who knew less than she.

David took a step back from his work. "Well, by all means, Regina...show me how it's done."

"You have to count it off in steps," Henry said with a grin, tossing an almost affectionate glance toward his mother as she moved into David's place.

"You measure this part with the mallet," Regina said, holding out an expectant hand. Henry supplied the mallet right on cue.

Regina complained there wasn't enough room in the small yard for proper spacing. She complained that the mallet heads were unevenly worn. She complained about the glare of the sun.

Henry knew all the rules and had to remind Mary-Margaret. With a little practice she regained her prowess. Emma had never really played croquet, and her father had to show her the basics. Henry proved to be an impressive young competitor. And Regina...Regina's ball smacked firmly into Mary Margaret's, David's, and Henry's balls in turn, and rather than taking any of the bonus shots, Regina chose to knock each and every one of her opponents' balls as far from the wickets as the confined space would allow. She won by eleven strokes.

It occurred to the Royals, a bit belatedly, that it was, perhaps, unwise to play croquet with the daughter of the Queen of Hearts.

Henry seemed incapable of any expression but a grin. The boy came in second place.

Day 26

David passed the freshly rinsed salad bowl to Emma, who took hold of it with the clean dishtowel in her hand. Emma had developed quite a fondness for this kitchen in the evenings. There was a dimly lit coziness about the place, a sense, perhaps, of the kind of home she had always imagined existed somewhere. The room was quiet this night, yet the soft sounds of an occupied home offered a subterranean comfort. Mary Margaret was upstairs in the shower, the water rush roaring softly in the wall, while Henry and Regina were in the living room playing chess, occasionally punctuated by an interjection or a laugh. Emma would have thought a strategic game of war would have come naturally to a woman such as Regina, but the game seemed to require a great deal of effort from the mayor.

"So. Almost a month," Emma said as she added the salad bowl to the growing pile of clean dishes.

Her father nodded, scrubbing intently at the spaghetti pot in his tall yellow gloves. She wondered if he had helped his mother wash dishes growing up. "Yeah," he said. "Almost a month."

"Do you think...I mean, do you think we're making progress? That this is...working?"

Emma squinted at her father's profile. Now and then she couldn't help but imagine what it would have been like to bring her first date home to this man, to ask him for a new bicycle, or to ride on his shoulders down Main Street on a Sunday afternoon. She wondered how often he wondered the same things. And if he felt like he had never had any more chance to learn to be a father than she had had to be a daughter.

David let the spaghetti pot settle into the sink, giving weight to his daughter's question. "I think...things among all of us have been wrong for...a really really long time. And I think they can't be fixed in a few nights."

Emma shifted her weight between her boots. "Yeah," she said to the floor, suddenly feeling quite young indeed.

"However," David continued, meeting Emma's gaze with a reassuring crinkle at the corner of his eye Emma had come to appreciate on a much deeper level than when she had known the gesture merely as one belonging to Mary Margaret's angsty crush, "I can't say I regret a single moment of being forced to hang out with my family. That's something I would actually pay Gold to do for me."

A grateful smile spread through Emma and she felt her shoulders sag from their braced scrunch. She had not realized how much she had feared confirmation that perhaps being cooped up in a cozy little house with her for a month was more than her parents had truly desired.

"Me too," she offered with a shy smile that belied her fortitude.

She left the words, "How do you think Regina feels?" unspoken. This moment belonged to her.

Day 29

The fireball hit the far well and sent the drapes up in a rush of blinding flame.

_"Mom! Stop!-OW-Aahhh!"_

The flash of heat from the glaring fire rushed so near Henry's flesh it burned like the Christmas Eve he had reached too close to the dinner candle and melted hot wax onto his arm.

Regina's horrified gasp rang through the room and she dropped at once to the floor beside her son. Frantic fingers grasped at the arm cradled at Henry's chest. "Henry. Oh, God, darling, I'm so sorry. I didn't see you, I thought you were upstairs. Are you all right?"

Mary Margaret stood several feet away, breath fast and heartbeat racing wild. She had barely ducked the path of the flaming missile hurled with such vehemence in her direction.

Henry winced as his mother probed the tender flesh. "Mom...what were you doing? Why would you try to hurt her?"

"Henry, I'm so sorry, I just-"

Mary Margaret watched the continuing flames lick at the ceiling, the carpet, the back of the arm chair. In this house they were locked inside. "Regina...," she warned, voice wispier than she had intended.

Regina glanced her way for only a moment, impatient and icy, but she understood quickly enough. With a distracted wave, the flames on the wall vanished and the curtains were left pristine and swinging as though in the wake of a light breeze.

"Henry..." Regina whispered, shoulders falling under a weight against which she had no armor. The disappointment in the boy's eyes brought tears to Regina's, but the fire in her veins kept the necessary offerings from her lips. She insisted on tending Henry's wounds, even as he tried to push her away.

She did not look at Mary Margaret.

Day 34

Regina and David continued to be the two who sought refuge on the forgiving boards of the back porch. As such they often found themselves in one another's company. Which Regina favored, since of all the endlessly babbling people in this damned house, Charming was the only one who seemed content to sit in blessed _silence_.

On this night, as the sun made its way down through the whispering willow tree and drew fingers of shadows across their quiet figures, David said softly, "Did you like to ride?"

Regina looked up at him, pulled from a sea of thoughts far from this garden. "What?"

"Horses. Did you like to ride? I mean, I know you _had_ to back in our land, but that doesn't mean you liked it. It's just that I was thinking about...you liking to be outside, and..."

"I loved to ride," she said simply.

He almost did not know how to reply when her words held no apparent agenda.

"But you don't, anymore?"

Regina shrugged. "I had the same horse my whole life. Riding without him...I mean, I had ridden other horses at times, of course, but Rocinante was..."

"When did he pass away?" David asked, hand holding his soda can and resting on his thigh, sun cutting through the sea-water pale of his eyes.

A beat passed before Regina said clearly, "When I tore his heart out and tossed it into a magical fire."

Regina told herself she looked away when the sun glared in her eyes, not when the look of disgust and horror clouded the prince's countenance.

"Didn't you love him?" he asked.

Regina stared at her black pumps against the peeling white paint on the porch steps. "More than anyone. Anyone...but my father," she said. Then she wanted to get up and leave, like she always did. But all the energy had drained from her, and she stayed there on the porch, and David stayed with her. Not speaking. Not running.

Half an hour passed before David asked, "Do you miss him? Rocinante?"

"Every day," Regina whispered. And she knew Charming could hear the tears in her voice.

Day 37

The perpetual frown lines on Regina's brow seemed to deepen. Mary Margaret almost remembered a time when those frown lines did not exist.

"Would you try something for me?" the princess asked.

"For you?" The sarcasm dripped like maple syrup. "I'm not here for you."

"You were once, you know. A long time ago."

"No, I wasn't."

"Yes, Regina, you were. You say it was all fake, but...you were my stepmother for a long time. And you did protect me. You did take care of me. You lied to me about what happened to Daniel. You said it yourself, that was out of kindness. You were taking care of me."

"You were a child. I wasn't the monster you painted me to be. That doesn't mean I cared about you. "

"Fine. Don't do something for me. Do it for Henry."

Regina continued to glare sullenly for a count of five. Then she said simply, "Fine. What do you want me to do?"

Snow took a careful step closer to the queen and watched as Regina tensed. She pushed forward, regardless.

"Hold my hand," Snow said, and held out her open palm.

Regina actually flinched. "Excuse me?"

"Hold my hand."

"Why?"

"Because if you never touch me again, we will stay in our separate corners forever. You've held my hand countless times in our lives, Regina. You can do it now. Just...hold my hand. You don't have to say anything, but maybe it will help us...help us remember that we're both just...people. Doing the best we can. And we both want our family to be happy and safe."

No one moved.

Then after several breaths of hesitation, Regina slid her hand into Mary Margaret's. The motion was more familiar and natural than either of the two women would have imagined. Regina stared at the floor, and the wall clock's ticks seemed to increase in volume.

Regina drew an uneven breath. Her lips parted slightly and she shifted the set of her jaw.

Mary Margaret furrowed her brow and cocked her head, listening for the slightest hint, the smallest clue to the emotions tumbling behind the queen's fa ade.

The hand around hers tightened, then withdrew. Without a word or a glimpse of eye contact, Regina left the room and took the stairs to her room. Mary Margaret heard the slam and latch of the door.

DAY 42

Henry found a GameCube in the back of the cabinet beneath the television. He could not believe they had not noticed it before. Only two games accompanied the system, but those were two games more than Henry had seen in over a month. He had the system hooked up and running in no time flat. He started teaching Emma to play his favorite of the two games the very first day. By the third day, their afternoon game had become a ritual.

One morning, during breakfast, Regina was more antisocial than usual. After breakfast, she disappeared to her room. Henry told Emma later that Regina had a really bad headache. He said she got them sometimes and that they could last a while. Over the next two days, Emma and Mary Margaret tried to do something to help - hot compresses, massages, warm soup - but Regina, though not as cold as she might have once been, remained unreceptive to most offers of comfort. She preferred to stay quiet and alone in her room or huddled in a shadowy corner of an occupied room. On the third day, she took some more aspirin and went up for an afternoon nap during Emma and Henry's gaming hour. Halfway through the daily tournament, Regina returned to refill her tea glass.

Emma noticed Henry glancing up toward his mom, noticed the slight tuck of his brow, the narrowing of his gaze in recognizable concern. But he said nothing, continuing with their game. When Regina passed back through the room on her way upstairs, while Emma was taking her turn, Henry said, "Did you get a nap?"

Regina turned and offered her son a feeble smile. Emma could see the wear in the other woman's eyes; the drain and fatigue. The headache must have been really bad.

"I slept a little," Regina said softly. She reached out and ruffled Henry's hair. "Don't worry, darling. It should get better soon. You go on with your game."

Henry nodded. He watched after his mother for a moment, then turned back to the television.

"She has a lot of nightmares," the boy said moments later, squinting toward the game controller held loosely in his hands.

Emma fumbled for the pause button on her own controller and turned to gaze down at her son. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. She used to, at least, I don't know...I mean, I haven't been around as much since..."

"Yeah."

Henry ran his thumbnail around the edges of the controller buttons, picked at the embossed letters. "But she used to. And sometimes...when I was younger...I used to pretend that I did. Had nightmares, I mean. Even when I didn't. And then I'd ask to sleep with her...so she wouldn't be alone. If I was there...she wouldn't cry."

Emma stared at the boy for a long time. This wondrous little person who had come from her, grown without her, and somehow found her again. She reached out and pulled Henry into a smothering and lopsided embrace. "You're one heck of a little kid, ya know that?" she whispered into his hair.

She expected a sarcastic little, "I know." She didn't expect Henry's young fingers to tangle in her belt loops and hold on.

DAY 47

"You know...it really means us."

"What?" Regina turned from the sink where she had been rinsing out her bourbon glass. The last rays of the day's sun drew stripes across the counter and the golden wood of the floor.

Snow dropped back against the counter, unconsciously spinning the dish cloth tangled in her hands. "When Henry says we all need to love, we all need to forgive one another. That we all need to...really talk to each other again. He doesn't really mean all of us. He means _us_. You and me."

"That's not true. No one in this house gives a crap about me except for Henry."

Mary Margaret's brow furrowed and she rested one hand on her hip, propped the other on the oven handle. "You really can't see it, can you? You never could."

"See what?" The defensiveness was like molasses.

"What you want most, Regina. What you want is family. Love. And all those years you and I lived together...I _did_ love you. I _was_ your family. You just couldn't see it."

Regina huffed out her incredulity. The familiar sneer twisted her lips and she fixed her gaze above the back door. "Believe me, I wasn't the one who was blind to what was happening in that house."

"Tell me, Regina. Tell me. In the very beginning, before you lost Daniel. When we first thought we might be family. Did you love me?"

Regina turned her head and stared at the princess for a dangerously long spell of silence. Then she dropped her gaze to floor and said clearly, "Yes."

"You loved me?"

"Of course, I did. You of all people should know, betrayal only hurts when you care."

Icicles thrown like fireballs.

DAY 50

"Don't you think this should be done _outside?_" Mary Margaret employed her best school teacher voice, but the smile beneath her words stole her authority.

Emma and Henry would not have listened in any case. Henry was holding tight to Emma's blouse, being held piggyback as Emma spun around the living room. The game had begun with Henry trying to learn a handstand and Emma spotting, progressed through back flips off Emma's waist as the two held hands, and finally become a goofy and uncoordinated effort to see who got impossibly dizzy first. Emma was losing.

"Okay, you win!" she cried and the game ended in a heap of arms and legs and giggles crashing into the couch.

It was only after Henry had recovered from his laughter and started reconstructing the original condition of the couch that Emma wandered toward the dining room table and noticed the sketchbook.

Regina had been sitting nearby, observing the afternoon play session, and on the table in front of her lay a large sketchbook, an artist's pencil, and a kneaded eraser. The open page of the book took Emma's breath away.

"Did you...did you draw these?" Emma's fingers crept toward the sketchbook, as though touching could help her understand. She glanced toward Regina, hardly able to tear her eyes from the penciled images. The open page held three drawings; moments captured of the innocent play between herself and her son - Henry flopped on the couch and Emma smiling above him and tickling his ribs. Henry held on her back, her own head tossed back and joyful. The two of them forehead to forehead and nose to nose as he challenged her choice for movie night.

Regina had settled in her chair, legs crossed and hands folded in her lap like a proper mayor. She was still dressing in nice skirts and slacks and high heels. Regina was forever royal. She drew a slow breath and met Emma's expression of wonder. "Yes," Regina said simply.

"You...Regina, these are amazing. I had no idea you could..." Emma's words faded as she was drawn into the incredible detail and emotion captured in the black and white sketches. "I can't draw a hang man," Emma said honestly.

When Regina did not speak, Emma said, "Have you been drawing a long time?"

Regina's gaze rested on the sketchpad. She lifted her eyebrows as though about to reply, when Mary Margaret spoke from the couch beside Henry. "She's been drawing as long as I've known her. She just wouldn't let me tell anyone."

Emma watched as the queen's throat muscles rippled in a swallow, but this small movement was her only acknowledgement of the words. "Yeah?" Emma prompted. "You did this when you were young?"

Regina nodded. "Yes. I used to draw all the time."

Emma reached out toward the book. "May I?" she asked.

Regina shrugged and gave a quick nod of consent.

Emma picked up the book and began to page through. "Oh, my God." She had to admit, she not only had not expected Regina's artistic talent, but she had never expected her to record such intimate and affectionate moments between Henry and his Other Mother. "Have you...are there drawings from when Henry was young?"

Regina seemed surprised by the question. But there was a softness in her gaze that appeared only at the mention of her son. "Yes," she said. "Back at our house. I wasn't...drawing as much when he was young, of course. Single mother, I rarely had my hands free. But there are some pieces."

Emma nodded and continued to page through the drawings chronicling their days in this house, the days just before, Regina's last days with Cora.

After a moment, Regina said, "I had many years' worth of sketch books, I...I lost them...when I enacted the curse."

"Would they be back in the enchanted forest?"

Regina shrugged again. She shook her head. "I don't know." She did not speak for a long moment. Then, "I tried to burn them all, once. But my father took them and...saved them."

For a woman with no more than a suitcase's worth of her past, Emma was surprisingly shocked by Regina's words. "Why did you want to burn them?"

The queen met her gaze with an unnerving steadiness. "Because they were full of people I loved. And love is weakness."

Emma slowly returned the sketchbook to the table. She drummed her fingers on the polished mahogany. "You don't...you don't still believe that, do you?"

Regina did not reply. She sat forward and pulled the latest page of work from her sketchbook "Would you like this?" she asked, holding the paper toward Emma.

"I...yeah. Are you sure?"

Regina nodded. "Of course."

Emma took the piece of paper and held it close. Regina took her sketchbook and left for the kitchen.

DAY 52

"He would have liked you," Regina said.

David looked over at his mother-in-law of sorts from his perch on the porch swing. The wind was cold, but the sky was clear. David lifted his eyebrows, requesting clarification.  
"Daniel," Regina said. "The two of you...you're a lot alike."

"So are we." Mary Margaret's voice startled both lurkers on the porch. The younger woman had been hovering at the door from the kitchen, shadowed and unseen.  
Regina turned with a deep and resentful frown as Mary Margaret stepped onto the wood of the porch. "Excuse me?"

"You and I, Regina. Despite what everyone says. We're a lot alike."

"We're nothing alike," Regina snapped.

The princess remained unruffled. "If I had lived your life, Regina...I might have been very much like you."

"I would never be like you."

Mary Margaret took a step closer. "Why? Why am I so different? You murdered dozens of innocent people. Maybe more."

"I murdered no one innocent. Only those who betrayed me. Who betrayed their queen. I would never hurt or betray someone I loved. And who loved me."

"Except for me."

"What?"

The sun flickered through the blowing leaves and speckled and dappled skin and stone. "I loved you," Snow said. "And you hurt me."

"You betrayed _me_."

"But I was a child. A child who made a mistake with tragic results. You were an adult. Who chose hatred."

David watched the slow blink and drag as Regina's lids lifted on a glare of pure hatred. The impact hit Snow like a rotten wind.

The boy, hovering in the shadows that had previously sheltered his grandmother, felt the hair rise on the back of his neck, felt the intangible energy he had begun to recognize as the power behind magic. He stepped into the light.

"Mom!"

David watched as his wife remained locked eye to eye with Regina, watched the two women's chests rise and fall as their pulses raced and the sun caressed their skin. He watched his grandson watch his mother with an urgency and determination and bravery far beyond his years.

Regina never looked at Henry. But without a word, she backed down. She walked past her son and into the darkness, moving in regal silence.

DAY 59

"Is that true?" the boy asked from the kitchen doorway. He was always unexpectedly in doorways. "Mary Margaret stopped your execution?"

Regina glanced toward her son, felt the presence of David at the nearby table and the uncomfortable stare from Mary Margaret. She cleared her throat and tried to reply, words slow and careful. The queen was nothing if not the politician. "There was some debate over who was the true reigning sovereign at the time, but...yes, she called off her guards."

Henry shook his head. "Why?"

The sting was familiar; she could gloss the effects. "She offered me a deal."

Henry shifted his weight and took a step into the dining room. "Well...what was the deal?"

Regina drew herself up straighter, stretched her chest for breath against the snugness of her push-up bra. "My freedom. Provided I was willing to...shift my loyalties. Relinquish certain...goals."

"You mean she wanted you to stop being evil. To be good again."

The clock ticked and a night creature scampered up the outside of the house. "That was her interpretation of the situation...yes."

Regina had ceased to acknowledge all the others the moment Henry had entered the room. Henry continued to gauge all expressions around him. "So...what did you do? Did you take the deal?"

Regina held her son's gaze for a steady beat, then offered him a melancholy and placating smile. "Henry, it was a long time ago, and there were a great deal of-"

The pain in the boy's eyes stopped her cold. "Mom. Please. Don't...lie...to me. Ever again. I can never start to trust you again, if you don't start telling me the truth. Telling _all_ of us the truth. It's the _only_ place to start. Please."

She stood in the middle of the dining room and breathed while the others held their breath. "No," Regina said at last. "I didn't take the deal. I tried to kill her."

The revulsion read like print on Henry's face, but Regina latched onto his clear effort to push past his reaction, to hide it. "She's my grandmother," he said softly.

She offered an indulgent and affectionate smile through the fear clouding her eyes. "Henry, you hadn't even been born yet."

"But she was someone's loved one, someone's friend, someone's daughter!"

"I was _her_ daughter." Mary Margaret's voice seemed disembodied. Regina and Henry, in desperate eyelock, had reduced their world to one another.

Henry turned to his grandmother. "And you're still alive."

"Yes."

He looked once more to Regina. "But so are you."

Regina nodded. "Snow had...protected herself. I was banished."

Regina gazed down at the floor for a long time. Then she shook her head, and lifted her gaze to Henry's. "Henry, I'm sorry. I never wanted any of this to touch your life. All I ever wanted was for you to have a peaceful childhood. Where you felt accepted and safe and...loved."

A quiet moment passed before Henry offered a careful but genuine smile. "I did...for a while."

The glitter of hope danced through the sadness between them.

"And now...," he continued, "I'm trying to get it back."

The boy nearly cried when for a moment...just a moment...his real mother looked out at him through the queen's dark eyes. The mother who had soothed his worst nightmares with a gentle touch, laughed at his first jokes, rocked him to sleep, cut the crusts off his peanut butter and jellies, and told him those mean boys on the playground would never be as strong and brilliant and amazing as he.

His mother looked at him, gave a single open and painful laugh that broke the boy's heart (and a few others nearby.) "Don't try my way," Regina said.

Henry swallowed the lump in his throat and whispered. "I promise."

It was David who broke the spell. David who kept the moment protected and perfect. He suggested Henry come with him to the basement to pick out potatoes for dinner. Mary Margaret and Regina were left, emotions shimmering in the air like snowflakes.

Mary Margaret had taken a step toward the archway to the kitchen, when Regina said, "You said there was no good left in me."

Mary Margaret turned. "What? No. No, remember, I told you I thought that woman who saved me...that she was still inside you."

Shaking off the words, never looking up from the floor, Regina said, "No, before that. In the woods. When you thought I was a peasant woman. You said you took it back, that there was no good left in me. That you'd been wrong all along."

Mary Margaret's face softened and she took a step nearer to the queen. "Oh, Regina. I was...I was in shock from what I'd seen. I mean...can you blame me? All those people who had tried to help me, just... You know I didn't really believe what I said in that moment. Or I wouldn't have made you the offer that I did all that time later."

"But, by then I couldn't hear you," Regina said, voice unnervingly matter-of-fact. "Because I'd started to believe...that you were right. Or at least...to believe that was the only way forward for me. Good people don't...like to be alone."

Then she walked away before Snow could reply.

She declined to join them for dinner.

DAY 64

"Yeah! Get down!" Emma cried.

David laughed outright at his daughter's teasing. But the moment was precious and the warmth and humor were spreading through the room like firelight.

Mary Margaret had pulled a CD of some sort of African techno dance music from a bookshelf in the sitting room and Snow White and Prince Charming and their daughter and grandchild were hopping around the cozy living room, dancing like fools.

Henry was holding Emma's hands and twisting and jumping with the rhythm. Emma had abandoned all dignity and was merely mirroring her son's movements. David and Mary Margaret were linked in a more traditional dance hold, but their dance was pure freeform glee.

At the edge of the room, Regina Mills sat on the arm of the sofa, looking both pleased and a little awkward and misplaced in the family scene. Emma noticed just before Henry. But it was Henry who paused for a moment, letting go of one of Emma's hands, and held a hand out to his mother. "Come on, Mom," the boy said. "Dance."

Regina gave her boy a sweet smile, but shook her head to his offer. "No, thank you. You go ahead."

Henry tilted his head imploringly. "Come on. It's okay if you can't dance. No one cares, it's just for fun."

Mary Margaret spoke from behind him. "Henry, your mother is actually a lovely dancer. She even taught me a few things."

Henry's expression brightened. "That's right! You would have had to learn...for the...the royal balls, and stuff. Right?"

Regina nodded. "That's right. I had dance instruction when I was young. And then after I was married."

Emma watched as Henry processed this information. It was still foreign to the boy to hear his mother speaking casually and honestly about her life. "Well, then," he said, "come on."

Regina dropped her gaze with a polite kind of shyness. "Oh, I...I'm afraid this isn't really my type of dancing."

David loosened his hold on his wife and stepped forward. "Well...what do you say we fix that?"

Regina gazed up at David in surprise, but she did not reply.

With a quick communicative glance toward Mary Margaret, David moved past Henry and held out a hand of invitation to Regina.

With only a brief hesitation, the queen slipped her hand into the prince's and stood.

He began to lead her in a dance that they had each performed dozens of times at social functions in their home realm. Regina fell into step with him, matching their own beats to the contrasting music with unexpected ease.

Henry watched David circling Regina around the living room and into the foyer with an rather enchanted smile on his young lips. Emma wondered if Henry's wild imagination were supplying the gowns and pearls and candle chandeliers.

"You dance quite well, Charming," Regina said, voice low and dusty and almost seductive.

"You're quite accomplished yourself, Your Majesty."

Day 67

"What about my father? Didn't he-"

The queen whirled from the counter, her voice crackling with incredulity. "Your _father?_ Your father knew I didn't love him, and he didn't care. I was the proper ornament for him at the time, a necessary political tool. He never cared that I wasn't happy. He knew, he didn't care. I was an unavoidable casualty. Property. He intruded upon my privacy, read my personal journals, locked me in my rooms when he didn't like my behavior. He regularly refused to allow me to leave the grounds without him, not to mention he repeatedly forced me to-when I clearl-" but Regina broke off and looked away. Snow caught the small squint and twitch at the corner of her eye.

She knew this woman, for better or worse, for love and hate. She knew that for all the temper and flare and fire, the real hurts were quiet. And this one ran unusually deep.

The cold settled into Snow's stomach like liquid fear. She drew a slow breath. "Forced you to...what?"

Regina's lashes fluttered, but her gaze remained downcast. "The rest of that list isn't enough for you?"

"Forced you to...you can't mean... My father would never do that."

Regina gave a sharp exhale through her nose and arched an eyebrow. But the expected malice toward Snow was oddly absent in her carriage.

She did not speak.

"Regina..." A faint whisper.

"Do we..." Regina cleared her throat, then tried again. "Do we have more of the caramel ice cream? I told Henry I'd look."

The queen would not look at her step-daughter, but Snow would not look away. Brow furrowed, the princess nodded her reply. "Yeah," she said softly, "we do."

She thought Regina would leave. But the queen busied herself with the ice cream. Working the softer edges carefully with the serving spoon, arranging the scoops in a bowl for Henry. She stayed in Snow's part of the kitchen. And Snow did, too.

After a while, Regina disappeared toward the living room with the bowl of ice cream.

DAY 71

All morning, Regina was in an unprecedentedly good mood. No one could really guess why. It was a little unnerving. Maybe it was the time she had been spending with Henry, perhaps the boy's receptiveness. Maybe something of which none of them were aware. In any case, when the royals gathered for lunch, they found Regina had just finished making grilled cheese sandwiches and soup for all. Henry had been lurking around the kitchen helping his mother. And when he made some clever little remark about the weather and ducks and attempted his Daffy Duck impression, Regina actually laughed. A genuine, carefree laugh of which neither Emma nor David had known the woman was capable.

Regina turned in the lingering embers of her amusement and transferred a sandwich from the skillet to the plate in front of Emma. "Here you, go, dear," she said, meeting Emma's gaze for a gentle moment.

Emma couldn't keep the responding smile from her lips. Because when Regina did smile at you - not sneer or smirk or gloat, but really smile at you - she had the sweetest little crinkle at the corner of her eye. And Emma felt a wave of warmth and kindness rush over her that engendered a disorienting disconnect with the words Evil Queen.

On the far side of the room, Prince Charming said quietly to his grandson, "You know your mom has a beautiful smile."

The boy wrinkled his nose and said, "Eeiiw."

David frowned down through his affectionate humor. "What?"

"She's your wife's stepmother!" Henry sputtered, as though this were the most obvious and damning fact in the world.

The prince leaned back with a contagious laugh. "Henry, that doesn't mean she can't have a nice smile."

DAY 73

Emma tried to cook dinner. She kept it to a simple pasta dish, and it was almost edible, even by her own estimation. David had gotten inspired to bake (the boredom was having peculiar effects on them all) and he had taken over the task of desserts for the week.

With the passable pasta plates mostly empty and cleared, David served his custard dessert.

Emma and Henry eagerly dug into the treat. They had been sorely missing Granny's sundaes, and any sugary delight was enthusiastically welcomed.

The diners were all a few bites into their portions when Snow pulled back from her dessert cup with a soft moan. She shoved her chair from the table with a hand to her stomach and her complexion visibly paled.

"Mary Margaret?" Concern laced David's soft tone.

A beat passed, then Mary Margaret looked up at her husband and blurted out, "Are there strawberries in this?"

Regina dropped her spoon.

David glanced among the questioning faces. "Yes," he said. "I did..." He did not understand. Not at all.

Regina did. She frowned at the bewildered prince. "You gave her _strawberries?_"

David tried to speak but he was too lost to find words.

Snow ran for the kitchen sink and hurled.

Regina stood to follow, shooting a cruel glare at the now distraught David. "Strawberries make her ill," Regina said. "They have since she was a girl. How do you not know this?"

David tangled his fingers in his close-cropped hair, swiped a hand over his five o'clock shadow. "Oh, my God. It's...it's been so long, and it just...it never came up. Mary Margaret does the cooking, and...will she be okay? Does she need to go to the hospital?"

Regina stood at the sink with Snow, a hand resting on her back. "She'll be fine," Regina said. "Just miserable for a few hours."

"Oh, God, Mary Margaret, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry..."

Snow had stopped hurling, but remained hunched over the sink with her arms propped awkwardly on the counter. Regina, glowering at Charming, retrieved a cold soda can from the fridge, wrapped it in a dish towel and brought it to the back of Snow's neck.

Snow drew a slow and careful breath.

"Take it easy," Regina said.

David was so wrapped up in his own self-loathing, Henry was so much caught between the unexpected drama and the inner turmoil of judging the most tasteful time to dive back into his own desert before the ice cream topping melted, that Emma was the only one to see...really _see_, that intentionally or not, Regina was acting rather blatantly like Snow White's mother.

A whole day passed before Snow said to Regina, "You remembered."

"Remembered what?" The queen asked, scrambling for context.

"Last night at dinner, you-"

"Oh, that. How could I forget? The number of times you thought you could sneak a few strawberries, and when we had guests in the hall from-"

But Snow shook her head. "No. You remembered about the cold, on the back of my neck. That it's the only thing that ever helped to settle the nausea."

Regina held Snow's gaze for a long moment. "Oh. Yes," she said.

DAY 76

Emma found herself staying awake later and later at night. It was hard to sleep without her customary hours of exercise. The grounds of this house were far too small for a run, and there was no treadmill. She had finally found a jump rope amidst the miscellany in the basement, and that had served for some sort of cardio work, at least.

Emma had started reading at night; something she hadn't done since she was a kid. She discovered a series of mystery books in the library that kept her attention more than she expected. Perhaps she was simply that bored. She had read a fair amount of mystery books as a child. It had never occurred to her then, that she would one day be a small town sheriff working to solve mysteries.

One night, neither the day's exercise nor the reading had led her to the sought-after dreamland. She had dozed off on top of her book for nearly an hour, but then she had woken, turned off the light, and found herself staring at the ceiling listening to the most obnoxious cricket alive.

It was somewhere in her room. It had to be. The damned thing wouldn't shut-up. She turned on the light, crawled around her bedroom floor, pulled up her pillows and plastered her ears to her headboard, to the baseboard, to the closet door. The cricket was either on the move or had a lot of friends.

She tried to cover her head with a pillow and sleep. In the end, Emma decided maybe some of the strawberry milk she and Henry had made earlier would put her out despite disturbances. Even though the flavoring was full of sugar.

With the bedside lamp back on, Emma pulled on a pair of yoga pants over her sleep shorts and padded her way past her parents' bedroom door. She could hear her father's soft snores behind the closed door. She paused at Henry's room, pushed his door a few inches in and watched his safely sleeping figure for a few moments before moving on.

Certain she was the only human awake at this late hour (possibly in all of Storybrooke), Emma was more than a little startled when she passed through the darkened living room and found herself three feet from a silent and shadowed Regina.

"Holy-Jesus Christ, Regina. You scared the crap out of me."

The queen lifted her gaze from her brandy and stared up at the intruder. She was seated on the couch in her pajamas and an open silk robe, one slippered foot propped on the edge of the coffee table. Elegant even in nightclothes. She did not speak, and her dark eyes blended with the night.

"What are you doing up?" Emma asked, still panting in the quiet. Of all people, Emma had never expected Regina to catch her by surprise. Regina's presence was such a tangible force in a room, Emma could usually feel the woman coming around a corner.

Regina, unruffled, gave a one-shouldered shrug and let her gaze sink. "We aren't allowed to be awake late in this house?"

Emma let go a wry breath. "Okay, Regina. I'm just going to get a drink."

The queen remained silent, and Emma proceeded to the kitchen and gathered the supplies for strawberry milk. But as she worked, she could not help but hear her son's voice echoing in her head. _She has a lot of nightmares_.

Emma stirred the sugar and food coloring into her milk, delaying the inevitable as she tranced out to the clinking rhythm of spoon against glass.

When she had returned the mix to the pantry, rinsed off the spoon, put the milk back in the fridge, and sponged off what she had splattered on the counter, Emma returned to the living room to find Regina exactly as she had left her. _Dammit_.

Emma stood in contemplation for a count of ten, then she drew a breath, stepped forward and perched herself on the arm of the couch. She took a sip of her strawberry milk, wiped her mouth with her wrist, then said quietly, "You okay?"

Regina drew a slow breath, silk nightclothes shifting with a swish. "I'm fine," she said. "I just couldn't sleep." She did not meet Emma's eyes.

The erstwhile princess took this in. Then she let out a heavy breath. "Well," she began, "I can tell you why I'm awake. There's a really really loud cricket somewhere in my bedroom. It's clearly inside the house, maybe inside the walls, but for the life of me, I can't find the damned thing. Could you hear it from your room?"

Regina shook her head. "No." She was replying to direct questions, but she wasn't engaging.

Emma remained undaunted. "Hunh. You're lucky you're at the other end of the hall. Henry seemed to be out cold."

The mention of Henry prompted the queen to turn a fraction in Emma's direction and lift an eyebrow with a hum of acknowledgement.

Emma continued to fill the silence. "Seriously, I think the thing must be inside a wall or behind the bookcase or something. I mean, there's not much stuff in that room. I even pulled the furniture out from the walls. I have no idea where..." Emma turned to gaze down at Regina's statuesque profile. "Hey...," she began, voice a bit softer and more tentative, "could you use magic to find a cricket like that?"

"Yes." Regina said.  
Emma blinked. No one moved. Then, Emma breathed out, "Okay..."

The two women sat for a long moment in pregnant silence.

Finally, Emma dropped unceremoniously onto the couch cushion, squished in between the pillows and Regina close enough to brush the queen's knee and disrupt her peaceful stance. "Look," Emma said. "I'm sorry. I know it must feel like we're all ganging up on you sometimes."

To this Regina gave a wry exhale that screamed the words, _Ya think?_ in Emma's head.

Emma nodded. "Yeah. And I know Henry wanted Gold here, too, to sort of...I don't know, even things out. But I can't say I'm sorry that he's not. But...it's not... Look, Regina, the thing is...," Emma paused to set her glass of milk on the coffee table, then she turned to half-face Regina. "Henry loves you," she said. "He's hurt and conflicted about what's right to do, but...he really loves you. And Henry's a pretty smart kid. You of all people should know that, right?"

Emma watched Regina swallow hard, gaze never leaving her glass. "He is."

"And he thinks you're a good person, that you just...got dealt a really lousy hand. And maybe...you didn't know what else to do. And if Henry thinks that, well...then I believe in him." She paused for a long moment, time seeming to slow in the grey-blurred hours of the early morning. "He doesn't want you to change for our sake, Regina," she said softly. "He just wants you to be _happy_. And...so do I."

Regina's breathing had quickened, and she shifted a little in her seat. Her lips parted, giving the slightest gentle sound to her breath.

Emma figured she had already risked death by fireball, she might as well go all the way. "So, Regina...whether you want me to or not, I'm going to sit here with you while you can't sleep. And I know every time someone is nice to you or honest with you, that your first instinct is to get up and walk away. And believe me, I understand that way, _way_ too well. But I also understand what it's like to spend your life wanting a family more than anything in the world and not understanding why everyone else just seems to _get_ one and you're left out. Wondering what the hell is wrong with you and what you did to deserve all this crap. So...I'm going to sit here. And if you want to get up and leave, that's your choice. I won't follow you."

The world held still. Then, Regina said, "I was here first." All the power of the Evil Queen of legend, all the layers and double meanings and years buried in the simple words coursed over Emma's skin like fireflies in the darkness.

Emma gave a slow nod. She settled into the couch and leaned her head back onto the soft cushions to stare at the ceiling.

Regina never looked at her. But she stayed.

Eventually, Emma dozed off where she sat. When she woke to the first threads of dawn, Regina was gone. Emma blundered her way upstairs through the still silent house, hoping for a few more hours of sleep. She had flopped into her welcoming bed, when her eyes fell upon the nightstand. Beside her wind-up alarm clock, in the grey-orange glow of the dawn, sat a large and blissfully silent cricket, trapped under the dome of what looked suspiciously like Regina's Scotch tumbler.

DAY 79

Henry caught a horrible cold. From where it was hard to imagine in their imposed isolation. But the poor kid was miserable and snoffling for days. For two nights straight, Regina sat up with the boy, leaning him against her chest, because it was the only way he could breathe enough to sleep. The Charming family was deeply affected by the display, realizing, each in their own way and own time, that this behavior was not just a side effect of Regina's recent attempts at redemption, but a sampling of long practiced routine. She had cared for Henry like this his whole life. Nursed fevers, laundered bedding, measured out medicine and read stories to pass the worst times. For the past decade as the conniving and controlling town mayor, Regina had also been a dedicated and loving and nurturing mother. The two images were hard to blend. Yet both were equally valid.

On the second night, David rose in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, then stole downstairs and made a cup of tea which he brought to Regina. She took the offering with a weary and grateful smile.

On the fifth day, Henry seemed to gain the upper hand on the virus and was at least fairly comfortable and content playing video games and reading books and sipping extra juice.

Which was when David came down with the cold. Emma soon learned that for a notably brave and valiant hero, her father whined worse than a child when he was ill. Mary Margaret treated her husband with the unruffled and tolerant patience of the grade school teacher she had long been, and he was soon finding his way back to health. His cough lingered, so Mary Margaret moved into Emma's room for the duration, leaving her husband a bell to ring if she were needed.

DAY 81

They started trying to talk. Really talk. Regina balked. Regina was a powder keg of explosive magic and passion and they had all been walking on eggshells for weeks and months. Maybe since the day they all met. Holding Henry as a literal and figurative shield between them would only work for so long. The only way to reach Regina was to push her to the edge of her inner fire, then either die with her in the flames or melt away her defenses and catch her in their arms.

They started to try.

On the third attempt, the third time they tried to talk about all the things that could never be said, Mary Margaret said, "I'm so sorry you lost Daniel. You deserved to be loved. That's all I wanted for you." And Emma reached out and stroked Regina's cheek when she started to cry.

When Emma said, "Henry doesn't want to be afraid, anymore," Regina stood up and left.

The remaining royals stared at one another for a count of five, then Emma and Mary Margaret stood up and followed the queen to her room.

They barged brazenly through Regina's closed door, found the startled mayor seated on the floor beside her bed. They sat down on the floor on either side of Regina, their backs resting against the side of the mattress.

"Excuse me!" Regina sat wide-eyed, indignant and tear-stained. She tried to turn away, to reject the intrusion, but surrounded as she was, there was no direction to look but at the ceiling.

"Yeah. We're here. Deal with it," Emma said, as she crossed her tall boots at the ankle and settled in to stay, thigh pressed up against Regina's.

Snow reached over and clasped Regina's hand. Regina pulled back, but Snow only tightened her grip as Emma found Regina's other hand.

Regina tugged and frowned as the two younger women stubbornly held on. She bristled and sent a sharp shock through Emma's hand to make her recoil.

"Regina!" Snow's free hand shot out and smacked Regina's knuckles.

The queen stared at her stepdaughter. "Did you just _hit_ me?"

And while the two remained in locked glares, Emma cautiously resumed her hold on Regina's free hand.

After a long beat, Regina sagged and dropped her weight against the bedside, gaze returning to the ceiling. "Why won't you get out?" she asked, half resigned, half weary.

"Because we're your family, Regina," Snow said simply.

"Since when?"

"Since the day we met. Any time you wanted us to be."

"Henry is my family. My father was my family. Daniel was my family."

"You can always have more. There's no limit to love."

Regina lowered her gaze to study her fingers where they lay tangled with Emma's. A thin trail of dark make-up in tear-tracks colored the line of her cheek, smudged where Emma had touched her face downstairs.

"You're doing this, because you want out of this accursed house," Regina said flatly.

Snow drew a breath and lifted one knee. "Maybe, in the beginning. But now...what good would that do us, Regina? It won't help us unless it's real. We'll get out of this house, yes, but then what? We go back to the nightmare we've been trapped in all these years? We go back to fighting and struggling and hurting one another? Henry stays caught between us all?" Snow shook her head. "No. No one wins that way. We're here because we've always needed to be here."

"I don't need you," Regina snapped, voice hoarse and deep.

Emma involuntarily tightened her fingers around the queen's, surprised at the protectiveness she had begun to feel, even in the face of Regina's power. Close quarters apparently _could_ affect people.

The three women sat for a long time. Regina sniffed wetly and swallowed. Then she said, "So, you want _me_ to change. To pacify all of you."

Mary Margaret shifted to face her stepmother, tucked her foot beneath her knee. "No. We want you to be yourself again. Your true self. _Finally_. That's what Henry wants. That's the woman who was his mother. The mother he loved. He wants you back in his life so very much."

"I'm not two people," Regina said. "As much as you all seem to want me to be."

"No," Snow said. "You're the Queen."

_I was always the Queen. It was you who added Evil to my name._

The three women sat on the floor of the old house that Mr. Gold never seemed to be able to rent. The night deepened, and in the end the threesome crawled onto the bed, kicked off their shoes, and settled in for the night. Mary Margaret couldn't help but note that Regina's bed was significantly more comfortable than either the one she had shared with Charming or the one she had recently shared with Emma. She wondered if that had been coincidence.

Moonlight trailed through the open curtains with the breeze when Snow woke, her neck a bit stiff from sleeping in her turtleneck sweater. She lay still, debating whether she would just slip back into sleep, or whether she should sit up and pull off her sweater and use it as a blanket. Then reality disentangled from her dream worlds and she realized it hadn't been the sweater that had awakened her at all. They were sleeping in Regina's room, the three of them. And Regina was crying.

Snow lay still a moment longer, feeling the gentle shift of the bed as Regina breathed close behind her, taking in the quieter, more peaceful breaths that meant Emma was still sleeping on the far side of the bed.

Moving carefully, guardedly, as though she were holding out her hand to a wild bluebird, Snow White rolled in place and squinted to make out detail in the fuzzy darkness. She reached out and lay a hand on the shadowy curve of Regina's shoulder.  
To her surprise, Regina did not startle or move away. She remained on her side, face half-tucked into the feather pillow, hair sleep-tousled and dusting her jaw.

Mary Margaret took two fingers and pulled the errant strands of hair from Regina's cheek, smoothed them down the side of her neck. "Tell me," Snow whispered.

The silence reigned for a long time in the untethered shadows. In a breath barely audible as voice, Regina whispered, "I can't need you. I can't...let myself love another family...and then lose you. Again. I don't have it left." The throaty shards of voice sent a visceral ache through Snow's chest.

"Regina...," she breathed, hand resting firmly now on Regina's shoulder, thumb caressing through the silk of her blouse, "as long as you don't go back to hurting people, no one in this house will EVER leave you."

"And what if I do? What if I fail your tests?"

Snow leaned closer to the queen in the darkness. "After all that has happened since the day we met...all the horrors, all the pain, all the death...I'm _still_ here. I'm still trying. I always was."

The three women lay in the quiet of the sleeping house. Emma's soft breaths kept time with the pulse of the breeze through the curtains. Mary Margaret listened to Regina's muted tears.

She felt Regina's muscles tense and pull beneath her fingers. Clouds shifted in the sky and deepened the intimacy of the darkness. Regina inched closer. Cautiously, she tucked herself into Snow's chest, just her forehead and arm contacting Snow's sweater. Snow did not move. Regina tangled her fingers into the knit cloth of the sweater and held on.

Snow shifted her weight and cradled Regina closer. She felt Regina's breath catch. A lifetime ago, Snow had curled into this woman's sleep-warmed body in the wee hours of the night, running toward comfort from her own night terrors. With her fingers tenderly smoothing Regina's raven hair, Snow White whispered, "It's all right, Mother." And somewhere in the blur of moonlight and shadows, the two women returned to sleep.

DAY 83

Emma woke at the ungodly hour of 5am. She had finally fallen asleep at a reasonable hour, only to wake before full dawn. Dammit. She had her bed all to herself again, as her parents had resumed their usual sleeping arrangements. Emma lay in bed as long as she could stand, then she pulled a warm sweatjacket over her tank top and padded down the stairs in search of coffee.

She was yawning and walking with half-closed eyes when she reached the bottom of the stairs and was startled into wakefulness by what she saw through her squint. The front door...was open. Only a few inches. But for the first time in eighty-three days, the latch had sprung free.

Emma quelled her immediate city-girl instincts to brace against an intruder. She reached out a tentative hand and pulled at the old wood. The door moved freely at her touch and a cool morning wind wafted through the entryway and lifted her hair. Emma stood in the freeing breeze for a long moment, drinking in the soft autumn scents. Then she drew a deep breath and with a quick glance over her shoulder toward the members of her family sleeping beyond, she pushed the door quietly back into place. She would make the family pancakes and maybe some eggs. It was Saturday. They had all day.

#


End file.
